at the University of Maine
To be truly sustainable, one must consider the core principles of sustainability. These include: respect and care for life on Earth; ecological integrity; social and economic justice; and democracy, nonviolence, and peace. Explicit promotion of sustainability requires deepening our understanding of the interconnections between these principles. A university thrives when its faculty, staff, and students recognize how their work influences the institution as a whole. Accordingly, institutional sustainability is promoted when the university community embraces the challenges of sustainability as an underlying principle driving its educational, research, and public service missions.
The majority of our actions and decisions affect the world around us through social, economic and environmental consequences. Citizens can make informed decisions using knowledge gained through academic advances in the understanding of sustainability. Our goal is to provide an environment of creative participation in the University of Maine community, fostering a “sustainability state of mind” in successive generations of educators, leaders, innovators, and informed citizens.
(The following definitions are modified from the STARS_2.0_technical_manual)
Sustainability Courses
Sustainability courses are courses in which the primary and explicit focus is on sustainability and/or on understanding or solving one or more major sustainability challenge (e.g. contributes toward achieving any the following principles: 1) Respect and care for the community of life; 2) Ecological integrity; 3) Social and economic justice; and 4) Democracy, nonviolence, and peace). This includes:
- Foundational courses in which the primary and explicit focus is on sustainability as an integrated concept having social, economic, and environmental dimensions.
- Courses in which the primary and explicit focus is on the application of sustainability within a field. Obvious examples include Sustainable Agriculture, Architecture for Sustainability, and Sustainable Business, however courses may also count if their course descriptions indicate a primary and explicit focus on sustainability within a field.
- Courses in which the primary focus is on providing skills and/or knowledge directly connected to understanding or solving one or more major sustainability challenges. For example Climate Change Science, Renewable Energy Policy, Environmental Justice, or Green Chemistry. Such courses do not necessarily cover “sustainability” as a concept, but should address more than one of the three dimensions of sustainability (i.e. social wellbeing, economic prosperity, and environmental health).
Courses That Include Sustainability
A course that includes sustainability is primarily focused on a topic other than sustainability, but incorporates a unit or module on sustainability or a sustainability challenge (e.g. contributes toward achieving any the following principles: 1) Respect and care for the community of life; 2) Ecological integrity; 3) Social and economic justice; and 4) Democracy, nonviolence, and peace), includes one or more sustainability-focused activities, or integrates sustainability issues throughout the course (i.e. social wellbeing, economic prosperity, and environmental health). While a foundational course such as chemistry or sociology might provide knowledge that is useful to practitioners of sustainability, it would not be considered to be inclusive of sustainability unless the concept of sustainability or a sustainability challenge is specifically integrated into the course.
Sustainability Research
Sustainability research is research that leads toward solutions that simultaneously support ecological health, social well-being, and economic prosperity. It includes academic research that:
- Explicitly addresses sustainability and/or furthers our understanding of the interconnectedness of social, economic and environmental issues;
- Contributes directly toward solving one or more major sustainability challenge (e.g. contributes toward achieving the following principles: 1) Respect and care for the community of life; 2) Ecological integrity; 3) Social and economic justice; and 4) Democracy, nonviolence, and peace) and/or
- Engages community members with the aim of combining knowledge and action to achieve positive social, economic and environmental outcomes (e.g. participatory and community-based research and engaged scholarship)